We were met in the morning by a local guide to lead us on a two-hour bike ride through the neighbourhood. The way was rough, with lots of bone-shaking gravel, uneven paths, rutted dried mud. But it sure felt good to ride, a change from all the walking we’d been doing.
We passed through neighbourhoods broken to rubble by the earthquake of 2023, the one that made the news around the world. The people able to replace their homes abandoned the customary adobe construction of mud and straw, building new houses with concrete bricks. I wonder how this will change the the look of Morocco with its rose-coloured cities and villages.
Putting our feet down on narrow paths with sharp corners to navigate
Our destination was the Ameridhl Kasbah, a privately maintained fortress home once belonging to a wealthy family. Our guide was highly knowledgeable in the history of the place. We saw olive presses and old kitchens (there were four of them); we climbed through the several storeys of the building; we took in the view of both the courtyard with its fountain and the outside, with the remains of the neighbouring Ksar. We learned that a Kasbah is a wealthy fortified home, and a Ksar is a neighbourhood, also protected by walls.
Courtyard
Sitting room
One of four kitchens, spread out for security and warmth
Another kitchen
And another
Complex construction
Sign of the Amazigh
This approximates the view depicted on the 50-dirham note, the kasbah as a symbol of Moroccan heritage
We were there!
Traditional olive press
Amal picked us up at the Kasbah -- enough of rough riding! -- to take us back to Sawadi for lunch.
Moroccan salad: finely chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and a bit of onion, with olive oil and lemon vinegar. Don't eat the flower!
A mostly demolished Berber omelet
We were free for the afternoon to hang out at the Ecolodge. We explored the farm, just barely begun to come to life at the end of winter.
Olive trees being watered
The hammam, just behind the lounge chairs
And then, most of us opted to partake in the hammam that was offered there.
Hammams, in their traditional form, are public baths. In times when water was not available in private homes, the hammam was where people washed. The last hammam I experienced was in Istanbul, back in 1972. It was a building many hundreds of years old, with marble interiors where we lounged naked for what seemed like hours, where someone would come along now and then to pour hot water over us. We were scrubbed, by equally naked hammam women, and the skin rolled off in black ribbons. We were gently massaged with scented oil. The guys, I remember, said the massage they got was anything but gentle. They were in the men’s section, of course, nowhere near the women.
The hammam at Sawadi is meant for two people at most. We went individually into the little steam room, where a not-naked woman scoured every inch of our bodies. I started off wearing underwear, but it was evident within the first minute, that that was ridiculous, so there I was, naked. This woman toiled vigorously over me. It seemed like such an act of love, one woman caring for another. And the skin rolled off in ribbons, again. This time, not black; I haven’t been travelling for eight months, like I had been back then, more than fifty years ago.
We were, all of us who participated, blissed out for dinner.
Sue’s birthday today! Mariam and Amal used the kitchen (pretty sure that’s what happened; these kitchens seem to be open to outsiders cooking in them) to make a cake, complete with candles. Happy Birthday, Sue!
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